Retirees Decries Difficult Access To Pension Funds After Retirements.

By Haruna Usman, Birnin Kebbi

The new pension policy initiated  by the former president Olusegun obasanjo, which is managed by pension managers across the country may have been done  with good intention, but as it stand the pension houses has become a safe haven for corruption  and poor managements of retirees funds.

independent survey indicated that out of hundred of retired  civil servants particularly  from the federal service find it very difficult  and frustrating while they make attempts to access their funds after retirements  from active service due to very  difficult  conditions  attached to it, some  of the  documents  they require  are not available  for a retired  civil servants to produce at a point he or she  gets angry and withdraw from the process.

A couple of them who spoke to our correspondent said the process is painful  and the conditions  attached  to it was intentional to frustrate retirees to abandoned  it for them to steal, Bello Ahmed a retired civil servants from a federal agency said his pension managers gave him what they called  checklist, according  to him it contains  all the documents  required for him to be able to access his funds in their custody his words, it took me at least three weeks to assemble the listed documents but after I have gathered  all of them, I went to submit they instead gave some  more conditions  which I cannot practically  meet due to the fact that  those I have submitted  were the only ones I have and are the listed, he called on the federal government  to come to their aid by disbanding  the so called  pension managers, he described   them as fraudulent  and incompetent.

Another retiree  Haruna mustapha said that what Maina did is enough  for the federal government  to prescribe  the useless  pension houses, he lamented  that  alot of federal retirees died without

accessing their pension contributions  due to stringents conditions  attached  to the process  of accessing pensions funds after spending 35years in service he described  those conditions  as a ploy to steal retirees monies, Haruna urged them to review  the policies to enable retirees to get their pension funds.